1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to electronic musical instruments, and particularly to an instrument which allows a user to compose and simultaneously play a musical piece in a number of voices which are continuously computed within the instrument, without previously stored music patterns.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventional electronic musical instruments or synthesizers operate only to provide particular notes or chords which are keyed into the instrument by the user. Accordingly, these instruments require circuitry to store the various notes and chords which the user may select while playing the instrument.
For example, Hall et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,248,118, issued Feb. 3, 1981, relates to an electronic musical instrument for deriving the harmony desired by the user from his or her manipulation of a standard keyboard. The Hall et al. instrument includes processing means for correlating a number of playing key pattern representations with each chord type desired to be recognized, and a considerable amount of memory is required to carry out such processing.
It will be appreciated that the electronic musical instruments of the prior art operate to produce notes and chords in a direct correspondence with the key or keys actuated by the user on a conventional type of keyboard. Further, the music so produced usually is only in a single voice. Therefore, the prior electronic musical instruments simply do not allow the user to compose and play simultaneously a musical piece in more than one voice.